Rationale As is typical of wicked problems, the policy response to climate chang

Rationale
As is typical of wicked problems, the policy response to climate change will implicate effectively every branch of government as states attempt to address the wide range of interacting environmental, economic, social, geopolitical, and cultural problems associated with it. This assessment will ask students to focus in on one of these specific areas and think through potential government responses.

Overview
You’ve recently been hired as a policy officer for the federal government. The relevant minister’s office wants to be briefed on what the government should do regarding one of the following issues (*** If you are not an Australian resident, please feel free to do the assignment about your own home country! You may adapt the questions to suit that country’s specific conditions, and you can email me with any questions about how to do so):

Option 1: The world is on the brink of a migration emergency. According to UNHCR, the past decade has seen tens of millions of people around the world forcibly displaced from their homes due to climate change, and by 2050, the agency estimates this number will rise to more than 500 million. As a Pacific nation, Australia will be confronted by this problem more than most other rich countries. Please brief the Minister of Immigration on the issue and provide recommendations on what actions the federal government can take to deal with the problem.

Option 2: According to the IPCC, greenhouse gas emissions from livestock (mainly ruminant animals like cattle, dairy cows, and lamb) are among the most dangerous threats to the climate. Australia, for its part, consumes more meat, dairy and animal by-products per capita than pretty much any other country on earth, with the average Aussie consuming more than 115 kilograms of meat each year according to Meat and Livestock Australia. Please brief the Minister of Agriculture on the topic and provide recommendations on if/how the government can/should help to address this issue.

Option 3: Australia’s proud coal towns and communities are rapidly approaching a crisis point. After a century of relative prosperity, declining domestic and global demand for coal will increasingly cause these regions to experience rising unemployment, shrinking populations and tax bases, declining services, and rapidly growing social problems like poverty, substance abuse, and mental health issues. Please brief the Minister of Industry on the issue and provide recommendations on what the government could/should do about the situation.

Option 4: Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupy a unique space when it comes to climate change. On the one hand, their communities are often on the front lines of the first-order impacts of a changing climate (and indeed, the exploitation of their lands by extractive industries remains a key condition of the environmental abuses that actually cause climate change). On the other hand, their intimate knowledge of these lands, built up over tens of thousands of years, has been increasingly recognized as central to the style of land management and ecological governance that could see us through the climate crisis. Please brief the Minister for Indigenous Australians on how to develop a climate policy that takes seriously the unique plight and potential contributions of first nations peoples on this issue.

Option 5: Didn’t like any of the topics from the list above? No problem, simply propose a topic of your choice for a policy brief to the course director by emailing robert.macneil@sydney.edu.au. This should be a climate-related issue within the domain of the federal or state governments.

What are policy briefs?
Imagine that you’re an elected official serving on a committee that sets the standards cars must meet to pass a state inspection. You know that this is a complex issue, and you’d like to learn more about existing policies, the effects of emissions on the environment and on public health, the economic consequences of different possible approaches – in short, you want to make an informed decision. But you don’t have time to research all of these issues. You need a policy brief.

A policy brief presents a concise summary of information that can help readers understand (and likely make decisions about) government policies. Policy briefs give objective summaries of relevant research, suggest possible policy options, and may even argue for particular courses of action. If you’ve never written a policy brief before, they are distinctive from an academic essay in a few ways.

Audience
In some of your academic writing, you’ve addressed your professors or other members of your academic field. Policy briefs are usually created for a more general reader or policy maker who has a stake in the issue that you’re discussing.

Tone and terminology
Academic writing tends to use a lot of complicated jargon, but clear language is crucial in policy briefs. If you find yourself using jargon, try to replace it with more direct language that a non-specialist reader would be more likely to understand. When specialized terminology is necessary, explain it quickly and clearly to ensure that your reader doesn’t get confused.

Purpose
Policy briefs are distinctive in their focus on communicating the practical implications of research to a specific audience. Suppose that you and a friend both write research-based papers about global warming. Your friend is writing a research paper for an environmental science course, and you are writing a policy brief for a course on public policy. You might both use the exact same sources in writing your papers. So, how might those papers differ? Your friend’s research paper is likely to present the findings of previous studies and synthesize them in order to present an argument about what we know. It might also discuss the methods and processes used in the research. Your policy brief might synthesize the same scientific findings, but it will deploy them for a very specific purpose: to help readers decide what they should do. It will relate the findings to current policy debates, with an emphasis on applying the research outcomes rather than assessing the research procedures. A research paper might also suggest practical actions, but a policy brief is likely to emphasize them more strongly and develop them more fully.

Format
To support these changes in audience, tone, and purpose, policy briefs have a distinctive format. They tend to use lots of headings and have relatively short sections. Briefs tend to include the following:

Title: A good title quickly communicates the contents of the brief.

Executive Summary: This section is often one paragraph long; it includes an overview of the problem and the proposed policy action.

Context or Scope of Problem: This section communicates the importance of the problem and aims to convince the reader of the necessity of policy action.

Policy Alternatives: This section briefly discusses the current policy approach (if the government even has one) and highlights some different potential options (often ones being used in other jurisdictions around the world).

Policy Recommendations: This section advocates for a specific approach (or combination of approaches), often taken from the previous section. This is the longest section of the brief, and    contains an explanation of the concrete steps to be taken to address the policy issue.

Consulted Sources: These should be reliable sources that you have used throughout your brief to guide your policy discussion and recommendations. Please present this as a standard academic bibliography.

Policy Brief Grading Template

Interpretation & Research
Are the journals, books and other sources that are used relevant & well chosen?
Has the paper avoided relying on the same sources?
Has the paper demonstrated a strong and clear comprehension of the subject matter?

Framing
Does the Executive Summary provide a brief and concise overview of the problem and the proposed policy action?
Does the Context/Scope section adequately communicate the nature and importance of the problem?

Policy Alternatives
Does this section give a good sense of the range of potential policy responses?
Does it make a solid case for the specific response you are advocating?

Policy Recommendations
Does this section provide a solid explanation of the concrete steps the government should take to address the issue and implement the proposed plan?
Does it account for potential issues or problems related to this approach?

Consulted Sources
Are the references and bibliography formal and consistent?
Are the sources consistently cited where necessary?

Grammar & Editing
Does the essay display proper punctuation, spelling, syntax & sentence structure? Is there evidence of thorough editing & proofreading?

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I submit my assignment?
Please submit it through the Canvas site.

Is there a 10% leeway on the word limit?
Yes, 10% over or under the word limit is fine.

Does the word limit include the references?
No, feel free to include all the references necessary.

What referencing format should I use?
Any formal academic style you like (e.g., MLA, Harvard, Chicago, etc.).

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